Editors ́ Picks

Internet freedom is an inalienable right to be guarded jealously

EDITOR:

Bob Koigi, Nairobi

In just two years, Sub Saharan Africa has lost over $237 million as a result of state-initiated Internet shutdowns, as governments across the region tighten the noose around online freedom of expression through harassment and intimidation of internet users. Since last year, 13 African governments have shut down the Internet on their citizens, compared to seven in the previous two years.

The idea has been to suppress dissenting voices and create a world of fear where only those in power have control and can filter what the public can or cannot consume.

It has been a tough call, from total outages during national examinations in Ethiopia to shutdowns in Cameroon, with governments operating under the pretext of national security. Businesses have suffered immensely, privacy has been invaded and the people’s right to information has been violated with no care in the world.

In one of the most recent heartrending experiences, the government of Cameroon shut down the Internet in the English speaking areas for 90 days following sustained protests by citizens who were opposed to years of oppression by the predominantly French speaking government. Startups who had built their livelihoods around the Internet were forced to travel 70 kilometers each day to Francophone areas to be able to connect with the world and protect their business from collapsing. During the calamity a 17 year old, Nji Collins Gbah, caught in the middle of the shutdown managed to manoeuvre his way to win the Google Coding Challenge, the first African to win.

But not everyone is as lucky. The impacts of these shutdowns have been felt long after they happen with businesses, most of them startups, losing clients and appeal to prospective investors waning.

People’s right to information access, their inalienable right to demand accountability and freedom of expression are non-negotiable in any democratic society. The rights of those offline should be respected as much as those online, and anything short violates the 2016 UN resolution that affirms the same.

While governments may continue justifying their reason for shutdowns, civil societies, media and other voices should escalate resistance to these shutdowns and educate the citizenry on alternative circumvention tools that can be applied in case such eventualities happen. In the age of liberalization, and impressive human rights track record, the right of Internet freedom remains sacrosanct and should be guarded jealously.

06.Nov

November 06th, 2017

Just another day in Paradise

EDITOR:

Gurmeet Singh, Berlin

After the Panama Papers comes the Paradise Papers – a new batch of documents, reported to have been sat on for a year by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, demonstrating how yet again elite individuals and organisations use loopholes in laws to avoid paying monumental sums in tax. (From The Guardian).

After the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers are the world's second biggest paper leak. Describing how the global elite and multinational corporations hide their wealth, the papers show how offshore tax havens engineer the conditions for inequality to continue to grow.

What's even more galling is that in the case of the British Royal Family, the wealth being hidden is almost certainly that of British taxpayers. Large sums of money are taken from the national tax income – expenditure which is usually justified through 'tradition'; furthermore, it is often argued that the British monarchy is worth the investment, since they also 'bring in' millions to the British economy through tourism. Now we see that this 'bringing in' is patently not true.

But this is how it is – it is another day in Paradise for the world's elite. While much of the global population lives on less than $1 a day, hypocrites like Bono from U2 can find ways to invest in exploitative projects while decrying capitalism.

It's enough to make you sick. But hopefully energy surrounding this will not simply peter out as it did with the Panama Papers.

04.Nov

November 04th, 2017

Last, but not the least a call for probe into war crimes in Afghanistan

EDITOR:

Shadi Khan Saif, Kabul

For years, decades in fact, the flag bearers of global justice seem to have turned a blind eye to the killing spree going on in Afghanistan, situated on the strategic juncture between central and south Asia. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has at last demonstrated some signs of willingness to take the cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide head-on.

On Friday 03 November, Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor of the ICC, announced that she will ask the court’s judges to open an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan committed since May 1, 2003, when Afghanistan became a member of the court. She also identified the ICC’s jurisdiction over possible war crimes “closely linked to the situation in Afghanistan” on the territory of other ICC member countries.

This one small step is indeed worth the equivalent of a giant step for putting an end to the prevailing culture of impunity and raging violence that is taking its toll on the civilians often caught in the cross-fire. The dateline in sight of 2003 and onwards would arguably mean that mainly the Taliban and other rebel groups such as the so-called Islamic State would come under the ICC radar, but it is equally important, if not more so, to hold the warlords who are now on the side of the Afghan government accountable.

The atrocities committed by the Mujahedeen factions in internal clashes for turf in the 1990s turned the capital into ruins. And, following the fall of the Taliban, the forces that grabbed the reins of power with the support of the US military power have been charged with gross violations of humanity in their treatment of the Taliban prisoners – particularly in the north of the country.

More than 10 years ago, the International Criminal Court began its preliminary analysis in Afghanistan – the phase to determine whether there are possible ICC crimes and if the court should act. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has acknowledged that in the meantime, there have been countless summary executions, forced disappearances, acts of torture, and suicide attacks on civilians in the country.

These abuses have largely gone unchecked, but it is pivotal for the rule of law and culture of justice to prevail and some sort of stability in the war-ravaged country that records are set straight and those proven guilty are held accountable.

02.Nov

November 02nd, 2017

International day to end impunity for crimes against journalists

EDITOR:

Shira Jeczmien, London

In 2001, just one week after the terror attack of 9/11, a journalist for the US newspaper Sun, Boca Raton, opened an envelope that led him to his death. Known as the 2001 anthrax attacks, what killed Raton and another 4 was the bacteria anthrax; letters containing bacterial spores were mailed to several media offices and some Democratic senators across the US.

Just earlier this month, independent investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb near her home in Malta. Intimidating murders of journalists across the world continue to terrorise the fight to truth, freedom of speech and a media that relentlessly challenges our society.

On November 23rd, 2009, in the island of Mindanao in the Phillipines, 32 journalists were invited by regional vice mayor, Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu, to cover the scheduled filing of his certificate of candidacy. En route in a convoy of vehicles, alongside 25 lawyers and relatives of the vice president, they were stopped, murdered, the women raped and ultimately buried in a mass grave, alongside the vehicles. Following the event, the largest massacre of journalists in recent history, the UN introduced the International day to end impunity for crimes against journalists.

Journalism is the crux for keeping society in check – and fearless journalism is what we rely on when the truth is continuously skewed, hidden, threatened and terrorised. Following the deaths of two French journalists in Mali on November 2nd 2015, Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, it was agreed by the UN that the day is commemorated on November 2nd.

The past 11 years saw the murder of 900 journalists worldwide; a crime not only against the futile loss of lives in the hands of malice, but against the very basic human right of freedom of speech. Frighteningly, over the past decade, only one in ten crimes committed against the media has led to conviction. “This impunity emboldens the perpetrators of the crimes and at the same time has a chilling effect on society including journalists themselves” writes the UN, leading to further impunity and generating an undercurrent of silence around world issues.

Just earlier this month President Trump continued his escalating one-sided war with the media, Tweeting “Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!”

The UN’s resolution comes at a pressing time, where the media is not only scrutinised by the most powerful government in the world, but continuously fighting for its right of survival and the scrutiny in its reportage. This landmark resolution also urges member states to impose a more stable security network for its journalists to prevent violence, to ensure accountability, and to bring to justice those who commit crimes against journalists and media workers.

We’re living through a time when journalism isn’t just fighting for justice, it’s in a headlock struggle to legitimise its reporting. And for that, we need to come in unity for a media that counteracts the fake news epidemic.

01.Nov

November 01st, 2017

Atlantic sardine plight underlines threats to global fish stocks

EDITOR:

Maria João Morais, Madrid

Experts have little doubt: the Atlantic sardine is in danger of becoming wiped off the planet and its fishing must be suspended in order to save the species. Last week, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea published a report warning of the critical situation, advising a total paralysis of sardine fishing in Portuguese and Spanish waters.

The warning is not new. Over many years, numerous scientific organisations have warned that the pace of fish exploitation is putting resources at the edge of their capacities. Year after year, catastrophe appears ever more eminent.

According to experts, overfishing today is one of the biggest threats to our planet. It means more fish are caught than are replaced through natural reproduction, triggering devastating consequences to the ocean’s food chains and ecosystems. Unsustainable fishing practices keep driving stocks to the point of collapse. Nowadays, “more than 85% of the world’s fisheries have been pushed to or beyond their biological limits”, says the World Wildlife Fund.

This devastating scenario endangers not only the oceans and marine life, but also the entire social and economic fabrics of coastal communities that rely on fishing as a way of life. In coastal regions of central and western Africa, the problem is likely to lead to food shortages and malnutrition within the population.

On top of human-induced climate change, worsening the serious problem is an aggressive and greedy fishing industry, whose methods are questioned and whose relentless pursuit of profit is continually placed above the interests of local people and the planet.

Temporarily suspending sardine fishing for a few months is only an emergency measure which won’t solve the problem. This issue needs to be planned with long-term, sustainable measures with global cooperation, focusing on sustainable fishing practices that conserve ecosystems and ensure food security. If there is no radical change in ocean exploitation, short-term measures are only postponing, not preventing, the eradication of vital marine species.

The recent withdrawal of Burundi from the International Criminal Court, making it the first country in history, is spreading jitters over potentially similar moves by other African countries that have decried being unfairly targeted by the court.

Burundi's decision to leave, while in the middle of a bloody political crisis that has so far left over 2,000 people dead and more than 400,000 others fleeing to neighbouring countries, is a major blow to justice for the victims who have nowhere else to turn to.

The crisis has seen torture, forceful disappearance, rape and murder, orchestrated by the highest apparatus in the land means that those aggrieved are at the mercy of their perpetrators – making access to justice a pipe dream.

It has been the trend across many African countries where the justice system is continuously corrupt and easily manipulated. With that in mind, the ICC has always played a pivotal role in being the crucial court of the last resort; stepping in when the national courts are unable to bring warlords to justice.

Countries like South Africa, Gambia, Kenya and Uganda, that have all previously threatened to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the formative law of the ICC, should be guided by the fact that it is only a formidable judicial system. The ICC operates under the scrutiny of global players, providing a viable path to justice for victims, while holding to account any culpable administration.

The will of the people under international law must also be respected, as was recently the case in Zambia. Public consultations to determine whether the country should withdraw from ICC indicated that 93% of the population wanted the country to remain a member.

In fact, the reason the African continent has the largest share of members at the apex court is because countries voluntarily agreed to be signatories to protect their people from any human rights violations. The plea to place welfare, interest and safety of the people first, while embracing the highest levels of commitment to the rule of law and accountability should continue being the continent’s guiding light in its respect for international human rights law.

30.Oct

October 30th, 2017

The well-publicised death of nuance

EDITOR:

Gurmeet Singh, Berlin

2017 has been an interesting year for extreme politics. Both radical left and reactionary right ideas have entered mainstream discussion. On a single day, you can expect a very average news station to cover stories that touch on the failings of capitalism, as well as the increasing power of Neo-Nazis. It's just that kind of year.

That's why, when an issue such as the removal of statues comes around, it's important to take a discursive view, and not simply leap headlong into dogmatic answers. The overlap between extreme right and left may be minimal in content, but there can sometimes be a similar vociferous tone, which makes their answers at least sound the same.

Let's take the Taj Mahal as a litmus test. Hardline Hindu nationalists (who are in power) want to marginalise the Taj from Indian history. They claim it is a symbol of the Islamic oppression of the Hindu nation. Therefore, to reclaim the true history of India, Mughal architecture and history should be excluded. It is not 'true' history.

There is obviously a lot to unpack here, but since so much of 2017 has been about the nature of public symbols and their connection to history, it seems appropriate to ask what the difference is between the Taj case and the removal of statues of Confederate luminaries in the US.

On the surface of it, there is an obvious parallel: both the white supremacist statues in the US and the Taj Mahal recall times of oppressive power alignments. The Mughal Empire was oppressive, Hindus were treated as second-class citizens (in an already caste-dominated society), and there were atrocities committed against Hindus and other groups on a religious basis. White supremacists of course enslaved and tormented black people for centuries, first as slaves, then as second-class citizens. Therefore, marginalising and tearing down these monuments is justified, even if the Taj Mahal is incomparably more beautiful than any statue anywhere.

Well, it's true that the cases are similar, but not in the way outlined above. Both illustrate instances of a powerful group trying to distort history, and celebrate oppression. The hardline Hindu nationalists are already in power in India – and their support for marginalising the Taj Mahal is born of a desire to isolate and marginalise Islam and muslims. They cannot tolerate that something so beautiful such as the Taj exists, since it the product of an Islamic background, and not a Hindu one. The categories used to describe history make no sense: India never was a wholly Hindy country, nor was it ever understood that the Taj itself is an 'Islamic' monument. Furthermore, yet nationalists justify this isolation through the specious writings of the risible PN Oak – a 'historian' who argues that once much of the world was ruled by a superior Hindu elite (sound familiar, Nazis?).

Just like the white supremacists in the US, they wish to support monuments that justify and celebrate oppression, and destroy those demonstrating diversity and pluralism.

The Taj Mahal is a monument more beautiful than any ideology or sordid thought the nationalists could ever muster. I sincerely hope India does not go the route of the Babri Mosque, and destroy another gem of its very real, very Indian history.

29.Oct

October 29th, 2017

Pakistan’s barren nurseries of future leaders

EDITOR:

Shadi Khan Saif, Kabul

Armed police force entered the campus of one of Pakistan’s leading universities earlier this week to forcefully disperse a peaceful demonstration by the university students.

Subsequent events at the Quad-i-Azam University in the capital Islamabad led to tragic, chaotic and unfortunate – whatever you call it – circumstances, with blood-stained students beaten-up by the police and rounded up into police vehicles. These heart breaking images went viral on social media, amplifying the impacts of state oppression against the very basic right of assimilation and protesting to defy oppressive policies.

A total of 70 students of the QAU were taken into custody by the federal capital’s police for demanding the release of expelled students, protesting against an increase in the fee, and a number of other anti-student measures adopted by the university administration. Justifying the high-handedness of the police, the Vice Chancellor of the QUA, Dr. Javed Ashraf, pronounced these students as “some unruly individuals.”

In this particular case, the QAU administration might argue the extreme intervention was made for the welfare of the students – who have nothing to do with all this ‘politics’; as if a political engagement for rights is a crime, and wish to go on with their studies. But, what about the students coming from poor provinces such as Baluchistan and remote areas of other provinces? Those who cannot afford an increase in fee, but are equally dreaming of a promising future, like the one available to their university peers from the well-off capital of Islamabad. Finally, since when and with what reasons has peaceful agitation become a crime, with demonstrations on a university campus, at that.

It comes then as no surprise that there isn’t a prominent presence of locally educated bright minds on the political arena in Pakistan, a country dominated by feudalism and nepotism. Universities are repeatedly failing to nurture young minds beyond the production of machine-like thinkers. Students are simply groomed to perform certain tasks in line with guidelines and instructions.

In April this year, a young university student, Mashal Khan, was lynched to death on the Abdul Wali Khan University campus by some fellow students who charged him of alleged blasphemy. Later in May, Saad Aziz – a young educated boy from a leading private educational institute in Karachi, confessed to killing members of Shia community and a leading female civil society activist Sabeen Mehmood in the port city.

In September, police in southern Sindh province accused a Karachi University student for being an active commander of a militant group and involved in attempted murder of a provincial assembly member.

A clear-eyed view of the situation demands that the students should be allowed to exercise their democratic rights, engage in healthy debates that fuel individualistic thinking, instead of being oppressed and left for exploitation.

Last Monday, just over thirty minutes after publishing the latest entry in her widely read blog, Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered in a car bomb not far from her home in the sparsely populated rural village of Bidnija.

Known more globally for her forefront work in the investigation and exposure of the biggest data leak in history, otherwise known as the Panama Papers, Caruana Galizia, recently described by Politico as a “one-woman Wikileaks” was a fiercely independent journalist, with no political agenda bar exposing undercurrent networks of corruption and financial laundering, predominantly in her home country of Malta.

The choice to end the life of Caruana Galizia using the scare weapon of a car bomb, was of course, motivated not by a generalised opposition to her work, but by a wider reaching desire to both silence reporting that interferes with her killer’s interests, and to reverberate a message of fear throughout the journalistic community. But as poignantly written by journalist Jonathan Freedland, “if Caruana Galizia’s death is a reminder of the risks such reporters take, her life is a reminder of the value of their work.”

Caruana Galizia has been accumulating evidence as well as publishing investigative writing that exposes and accuses Malta of becoming a mafia country, where the Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat – of whom she was consistently critical – and his wife have alleged links to the Panama Papers, alongside the usual elite corruption, money laundering and widespread gang violence.

We’re living through a time when brave investigative journalism is both rare and met with the risk of journalists’ careers, at best and lives, as we’ve now witnessed, at worst. With the President of the United States declaring that it’s “frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever they want”, in conjunction with his ongoing war on the press, it’s paramount we continue fighting, and marching, and protesting for free speech and media that is fearless.

Caruana Galizia’s son, a journalist himself said “This was no ordinary murder and it was not tragic. Tragic is someone being run over by a bus. When there is blood and fire all around you, that’s war. We are a people at war against the state and organised crime, which have become indistinguishable.”

25.Oct

October 25th, 2017

Europe still surfing the waves of populism

EDITOR:

Maria João Morais, Madrid

Austria has become the latest country in Europe to see voting for far-right parties bolstered. In the elections held on October 15th, the populist Freedom Party (FPO) achieved its best result ever, with 26% of the vote. With an anti-immigrant and anti-establishment stance, the nationalist party’s share of the vote was only bettered by the right-wing People's Party (OVP), which achieved 31.5% of votes.

Just 31 years old, People’s Party front-runner Sebastian Kurz will become the world’s youngest ever national leader, likely to form a coalition supported by the Freedom Party. As the country swings to the right, rhetoric from the People’s Party candidate is not so distant from the xenophobic message spread by the far right party and has proved effective in gaining votes.

Founded in 1956 by former Nazis, the FPO had maintained a modest but steady support in Austrian politics until the 90's, usually achieving less than 10%. The 2015 refugee crisis (when 90,000 Syrian refugees entered the country), however, boosted its popularity.

But it was not just the far right who scapegoated immigrants for the country's problems. The growth of the Freedom Party led Kurz to follow suit in campaigning on racist populist ideas, particularly on immigration issues. During the election campaign, the People’s Party announced restrictions on immigration and a stricter stance on crime and terrorism. As a foreign minister in the previous Government, Kurz had already closed the Austrian border to refugees in 2016 and passed an Integration Act in 2017 banning the full-face veil.

Apart from the expected xenophobic measures, the new coalition is also likely to adopt neoliberal and anti-welfare reforms characterised by its support for free market economics. Both the Freedom Party and the People’s Party have announced plans to cut public spending on social benefits, introduce more flexible labour legislation and cut corporate tax rates. At the same time, they are likely to deepen authoritarian measures such as curtailing the right to protest or controlling public broadcasting.

After the rise of far-right parties in recent European elections in countries such as France (21%), the Netherlands (13%) or Germany (13%), we continue to observe a worrying shift of far-right parties towards the mainstream. After an initial prudence in involving such parties in government coalitions, the case in Austria, nevertheless, paves the way for extreme right parties to be included in governance, a path in contradiction with European values ​​of tolerance and solidarity. Unfortunately, although with some exceptions, the rising wave of extreme nationalist populism does not yet show signs of crashing.